Heroes: Brother's Keeper Review (Mania.com)

By:Stephen LackeyReview Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009

It’s amazing that an episode of Heroes can get a good score and feature both Hiro and Mohinder. These are the two most useless characters in the show and they’re both at the center of this episode. While Hiro is just as annoying as always, Mohinder is slightly more interesting than he typically is. One thing about Hiro this week is that he shows a much darker side of his personality. When put into a situation where he must deal with Mohinder in order to save Charli, he doesn’t kill him but he does still do something that comes off pretty torturous. Hiro is usually the always positive always desperate to be the hero character and this time he’s forced into a decision that’s not so heroic. Hopefully, this decision will impact his personality in some way. He should feel a little guilty for what he did to Mohinder in future episodes. It’s that level of complexity of character that garners Hiro a few points this week.

This episode’s starts a new cycle a few of the heroes and it answers some questions that have been hanging over the series all season. Samuel’s endgame finally becomes more apparent this week and it isn’t disappointing. The answer to the compass is given as is the mysterious film that Samuel has been seeking. Hiro had to go back in time and rescue the film before Mohinder destroyed it. Of course, Hiro took the time to save Mohinder as well to his deficit. Mohinder was dead set on stopping Samuel no matter what the cost. That’s when Hiro was pushed into getting Mohinder out of the way until Charlie is safe. Mohinder doesn’t get anything mind-blowing to do, which is typical of his character, but he also doesn’t get to irritating either. It would have actually been nice to have gotten some narration from him this week. The narration from Mohinder was really the best thing about his character.

The Nathan/Sylar/Parkman stuff seemed to finally be wrapping up in this episode, but at the last minute, it gets drug out even further. Sylar only got a brief appearance this week and for this story, that’s a very bad thing. Without Sylar’s smart ass quips, the whole story starts to fall apart or at least it gets a lot less interesting. Sylar does get one funny line when he first appears for his brief scene but that’s it. This story has had many funny moments throughout its run, but it has just been dragging along. It’s time for it to be over and for Nathan to simply die. There are other characters I’d like to see dead much more but the story has been written and the path has been laid out so it’s time for things to wrap up.

Some of the best stuff of the week involves Claire and Tracey. Tracey has been going through an identity crisis. That’s a fully place for her to be considering that she’s not really herself and is actually a clone. She was made an offer to come live at the carnival by Samuel and with everything she’s going through the idea is appetizing to her. For the first time, she doesn’t have an identity and without that identity her emotional well being is in jeopardy. That unstable well being is manifested in the spontaneous activation of her abilities. Who would Tracey seek help from if her abilities went crazy? Noah of course? She doesn’t find him but she does find Claire who tries to help Tracey get control of her crazy abilities. The scenes between these two are just good fun as is Noah’s reaction when he gets home to find the two of them hanging out.

This installment of Heroes offers a lot of story development which has been sorely needed for several episodes. Samuel also gets more history and depth which makes an already fascinating character all the more interesting. If the Sylar story would just get finished and bring back the old Sylar ,this series would be in fantastic shape.